Ajit Mohan steps down as Snap’s chief business officer

Ajit Mohan, Snap’s chief business officer, is leaving the American technology behemoth.

In a LinkedIn post, Mohan said that he is leaving the $9.3-billion tech giant for personal reasons and to spend time with his family.

“My family stayed back in Singapore, and for the last two years I have been doing a non-trivial commute between New York, LA and Singapore, with a few occasional stops in London, Dubai and Bangalore,” Mohan said in a LinkedIn post. “I'm coming home, and I am looking forward to spending more time with the boys than with the Singapore Airlines crew on trans-Pacific flights, as wonderful as they are. At least one of the boys is dreading the anticipated new scrutiny on his homework and reading time.”

Mohan leaves after four years at the company, including a year and a half as chief business officer. Before Snap, Mohan was managing director for Meta in India, and the CEO of Hotstar before that. Mohan joined Snap as the president for the Asia Pacific (APAC) region, overseeing the company's business in India, Australia and New Zealand, China, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Korea markets before being elevated.

“When I joined, we set out to rebuild Snap's advertising business from the ground up,” Mohan said. “What that meant in practice: rewiring our ads platform for performance, making direct response the engine of the business, and proving to advertisers that a platform reaching nearly a billion users could deliver real, measurable outcomes. The progress that we have made in the last few years is massive.”

Over 493 million people use Snap daily, and posted revenues of $1.6 billion in the April-June quarter. Small and medium customers now account for more than 30% of the company’s advertising revenue. “Looking forward over the next 3-5 years, the rate of growth of our advertising business is what will primarily determine our level of profitability,” Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said in a note to team members last week. “Most of our incremental advertising revenue flows to the bottom line, and as the largest source of revenue for Snapchat, the growth rate really matters. If we are able to compound ads revenue growth at 15% instead of 5%, we will generate a lot more net income.”

Snap appoints chief commercial officer

India is currently Snapchat's biggest user market, with over 250 million monthly active users. In Mohan’s place, Snap has elevated Ronan Harris, who led the company's business across Europe, the Middle East and Africa for nearly four years, to chief commercial officer. Snap shares rose 3.95% over Harris’ elevation, on expectations that Harris might be able to emulate the much-acclaimed growth he led in Snap’s fastest-growing major sales region.

“I'm leaving with real confidence in Snap,” Mohan says. “Evan and the leadership team are building toward something that still matters: a company that still puts human connection and authenticity at the centre, with a big bold bet on the future of computing. That mission is worth backing, and I'll be backing it as a fan and a shareholder.”

Mohan meanwhile hasn’t announced what he intends to do next. “What’s next for me? I may finally act on a fifteen-year-old threat to write a book,” Mohan said in a post. “Maybe make a movie or two. Perhaps even figure out for myself this whole AI thing. But for now, I'm just planning to stretch my feet and put my head in a bucket of ice for a bit.”